Brittle Shadows (11 page)

Chris yanked
her out of their path, throwing a few expletives after the two Lycra-shorted
boy-racers. “Inconsiderate pricks,” he muttered under his breath, before turning
back to her. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live,”
she said, laughing off his concern. “Nothing that a picnic lunch couldn’t fix.”

At the end of
the bridge, they carried on along the trail for a short way and then veered off
into a treed clearing. Dry grass crackled underfoot as they made for a
weathered timber picnic table under the shade of a eucalyptus tree. Other than
three women eating sandwiches at a table far enough away to be out of earshot,
they had the spot to themselves.

Jemma waved a
fly away from her face. “I’m impressed,” she said as Chris started unpacking a
selection of antipasti, cheeses and breads onto the table.

“So you should
be,” he said, adding a bottle of Chianti and two wineglasses to the mix. “I
slaved away in the kitchen for hours to make all this.” He glanced at her and
grinned. “No, that’s bull. The credit has to go to my local Italian deli. Best
coffee this side of the divide.”

“I’m still
impressed.” In the whole time she had been with Ross, he had never once
surprised her with a picnic. Victorian men were a different breed altogether to
the Western Australian variety. But perhaps she was being unfair, considering
she had only ever dated three men in her life.

“Good. Now sit
down and eat.”

This was one
time she didn’t mind being told what to do. Over lunch they didn’t talk about
anything in particular, Jemma careful to avoid any subject which might break
the spell. They ate their fill and some, the occasional flick of the hand
enough to keep the flies at bay.

The combined
effect of the hot day, the food and the wine made her almost forget why she was
in Melbourne. For a short while anyway. If it weren’t for the ants, she might
have even stretched out under the tree for a siesta.

Her bag sat on
the seat next to her. She laid her hand over the zippered pocket where she had
stowed the autopsy report on Tanya’s death.

“Okay, I can
tell you’ve wanted to ask me something ever since I picked you up. Spill. I
don’t bite.”

“Did the
background check on the security guard throw up anything?” she asked, buying
herself some breathing space. “I mean if you’ve had a chance to do it, that
is.”

He smiled. “I
called in a favor and had one of my colleagues look into it. I wish I had
something to report, but as I suspected, nothing untoward showed up. If the bloke
is involved in something shady, he’s staying well below the radar. Also, now
that he’s aware of your interest in him, he’s going to be extra careful. That’s
assuming, of course, that he has cause to.”

“Thanks anyway.
It was worth a shot.” She dropped her gaze to the tabletop, tracing the
woodgrain with a fingernail. “Chris, were you involved in the police
investigation into Tanya’s death?”

“Not directly,
no. Obviously, I was interested in the case.”

“So you know
what was in the autopsy report?”

“I know there
was nothing in it to suggest foul play, no bruising, no signs of a struggle.
Don’t you think if there were—”

“Why didn’t you
tell me she was pregnant?” Jemma looked up.

Chris’s
eyebrows drew together, the furrow on his forehead deepening. “You didn’t
know?”

“Not until an
hour or so ago.”

He rubbed a
hand across his mouth. “I’m sorry, I assumed you already knew. I thought
sisters shared everything.”

She bowed her
head. Admitting to Chris that her relationship with her sister had deteriorated
to such a point that even sharing a hello had been too much, let alone intimate
secrets, wouldn’t be easy. With Ash it was different; he identified with her
torment, felt it. Chris hadn’t been that close to Tanya nor estranged from her.

He leaned
across the table and covered her hand with his. “Maybe she didn’t know
herself.” He lowered his voice. “My wife didn’t find out she was pregnant until
she miscarried. The doctors estimated she was eight to ten weeks along.”

She sat
upright. Chris’s eyes had glazed over. Oblivious to the fly crawling across his
eyelid, he didn’t blink for what seemed like an eternity.

A shake of the
head dislodged the fly and brought him back to the moment. He blinked. “Sorry,
what was I saying?” he asked, removing his hand from hers to brush his face.

Not everything was
about her. Jemma spun her chair around and gazed out at the black-windowed
office towers; high-rise buildings colonized by faceless workers. People with
lives, families and troubles of their own. But she didn’t know them and they
didn’t know her. Chris, on the other hand…

So caught up in her own dramas, she hadn’t thought about what others
around her might be going through. She wasn’t the only one ever to lose a loved
one. Chris and his wife had lost their unborn child and then their marriage. He
had tried to gloss over it, but his face and eyes had betrayed the pain still
raw below the surface. Something changed in him after that and she was almost
grateful when he suggested he take her back to the apartment. She only wished
she knew how to help him. He had already done so much for her.

She swung back to her laptop. The Norton Internet Security icon
appeared in the system tray, her indicator that everything had finished
loading. She launched her email program and sat back, watching as new messages
dropped one by one into her Inbox. Her face felt flushed and her head throbbed.
The result of too much sun and a little wine, no doubt. Or was it too much wine
and a little sun?

The next email made her sit upright, her headache all but forgotten.
She double-clicked on the subject line, opening the message to full screen. The
login recovery service had delivered as promised. She was always telling people
to use passwords they could easily remember, but that others would have trouble
guessing. Tanya had definitely done that: Jemma would never have thought to try
Tanya’s ex-husband’s name spelled backwards.

She powered up Tanya’s notebook, drumming her fingers on the desk,
waiting for it to boot.

Type your password

Crossing her fingers, she keyed in ‘tnerb’ and pressed enter.

Loading your personal settings…

Success. She all but jumped for joy. Instead she made do with a
quick 360 spin in the chair. It seemed to take forever to load, but a watched
computer always did. Pressing her right fist into her left palm, she waited.

She resisted touching the keyboard until the myriad applications in
the system tray had loaded, pouncing on it as soon as it had. One click opened
Tanya’s email software. Jemma frowned, her initial elation turning to
puzzlement. She checked the program list for another email application.
Nothing. She opened the My Documents folder. Nothing. She checked the history
files, the temp files, the recent files and the system logs. Still nothing.

While she hadn’t known what to expect, it wasn’t that. Someone had
cleaned the system. Someone who knew what they were doing, but not enough to
have reformatted the hard disk, if erasing all the data is what they’d had in
mind. Tanya herself? But why?

Jemma opened the System Tools. The hard drive had also been
defragged, leaving little possibility of reconstructing the deleted files. She
sat back, arms crossed, and stared at the screen. Why would someone – even
Tanya – go to so much trouble? It didn’t make sense, but nothing that had
happened made sense.

And what about the surplus cables? Did they belong to a second
laptop? Sean’s perhaps? Where was it then? Not in the apartment. She had
already turned the place upside down. Or was the answer simply that Tanya had
upgraded her laptop, dumping the old machine but keeping its cables as spares?

As much as she wanted to believe that, something told her there was
more to it. The man who had let himself in that first night hadn’t done it for
the hell of it. He had to have been there for a reason. All she had to do was
work out what that was. And who.

She stood and paced the room. Her presence in the apartment had
surprised the intruder, which ruled out Ethan and Chris. Not that she suspected
either of them was involved in the first place, but she had to start somewhere.
That left…

She stopped and threw her hands in the air. “God, Tanya, help me out
here.” Dropping her hands, she plumped back down on the chair. Who was she
kidding? She wasn’t helping her sister; all she was doing was torturing
herself. Nothing she could do now would bring Tanya back or make up for all the
lost months. As much as she wanted to hate Sean Mullins for pitting sister
against sister, for destroying the bond that she and Tanya had once thought
indestructible, she couldn’t. Hating him couldn’t undo what was done. She felt
only pity.

The tram jolted to
a stop. Releasing her grip on the pole, Jemma stepped down through the open
doors. She waited for a light blue van to pass before making a dash toward the
pavement and the shade of a gift shop awning. Out of the direct midday sun, she
took a moment to orientate herself. If she had followed Fen’s directions
correctly, the café where they were supposed to meet should be about 80 meters
from the corner.

Hitching up her shoulder bag, she headed in what she hoped was the
right direction. She spotted a sandwich board up ahead and quickened her pace.
The sign directed her down an alleyway, where she found Pinot’s tucked behind a
wrought iron fence.

She walked through the arched gateway into the grapevine-canopied
courtyard, continuing past when she didn’t see Fen amongst the people at the
tables.

Inside was dark and cool, a faint berry scent to the air. She paused
in the doorway, giving her eyes time to adjust. Except for a sole woman diner
in the corner picking at a salad and reading a magazine, the café was empty.
She heard a clink of glass and looked across in time to see a blond head bob up
from behind the bar, hands full of wineglasses.

The man behind the bar smiled at her, set the glasses down, then
wiped his hands. “Table for one?”

“For two, please. Outside, if that’s okay.”

He showed her to a table near the back, next to a raised herb
garden, and left her with two menus. A couple of minutes later, he returned
with two tumblers and a bottle of iced water.

Fen announced her arrival with a rapid staccato of heels against
brick pavers, her sleeveless green-and-white dress swaying as she made a
beeline for the table. “So sorry. I got caught up on a phone call just as I was
leaving.” She kissed Jemma’s cheek, sat down and picked up a menu. “Order
first, talk second. I have to be back in an hour.”

Jemma opted for the house salad: a selection of spinach and baby
greens, walnuts, apple slices and Gorgonzola dressed with a raspberry
vinaigrette.

“Siciliano eggplant torta, but hold the mayo, thanks,” Fen said,
handing her closed menu to the waiter and turning to Jemma. “If you don’t mind
me saying so, you look great. Melbourne must agree with you.”

Jemma gave Fen a knowing smile. “The same could be said about you.”
Indeed, everything about Tanya’s friend glowed – from her flawless Eurasian
skin; to her almond eyes; to her fine, dark hair. Quite different to the last
time they had met, when pallid faces and red-rimmed eyes were the look of the
day.

Fen glanced over her shoulder and then back at Jemma. “I really
didn’t know about Tanya’s pregnancy.”

“I believe you. That’s not why I wanted to meet.” Jemma picked up
the water bottle, motioning at the tumblers.

“Please.” Fen waited until Jemma finished pouring. “So why did you
want to see me?”

“Insight?” More question than statement. “You were my sister’s best
friend.”

“I don’t know that there’s much I can tell you.”

“It might not seem like much to you, but anything – anything at all
– you can tell me about Tanya and what was happening in her life in those last
few months would mean a lot to me. No doubt you heard all about our bust-up.”

Fen nodded, her finger tracing a path through the condensation on
her glass.

“So stupid. I still can’t believe how it happened.”

“I can. Our friendship nearly went the same way.”

Jemma’s head snapped up. “Are you serious?”

“You know how besotted your sister was with that man of hers. She
wouldn’t hear a bad word said against him, whether it was true or not. I made a
passing comment one day about her not seeing him for what he really was. Bad
move. She didn’t even give me a chance to explain, just picked up her bag and
left. She refused to speak to me for days after that.”

“Only days?”

Fen’s lips twisted in a wistful smile. “I think that when you
accused Sean of coming on to you, she felt for some reason that everyone was
ganging up on her.” She raised her hand to stop Jemma speaking. “I don’t doubt
for one second that Sean did what you said he did. Unfortunately for you – for
all of us – he was the one pulling the strings.”